Don't blame us for being 'non-compliant' - it is you who have failed us

In a brilliant blog post on Home Dialysis Central, Dori Schatell of the Medical Education Institute says:"At the NKF Spring Clinicals meeting in March, a comment I was told that someone made at the microphone during a session still bothers me months later. The gist of it was: “Why does all of the responsibility for improving outcomes fall on clinicians—where is the patient in all of this?” [Good point, but it goes on…] “I lose money if my patients don’t reach the quality targets. Why can’t we fine the patients if they don’t do their part?”—and audience members applauded!"This attitude among some nephrologists (not all are like this, of course) is extremely bothersome. No one chooses to be on dialysis. It is something thrust upon them. How can anyone have such a callous attitude towards them? The entire healthcare system has failed us dialysis patients. Look at the amount of innovation that has happened in cardiology and compare that with the innovation that has happened in dialysis. Only one word can describe this: pathetic.The situation in India in terms of problems that patients have is far worse. Add all the problems that patients in developed countries have and add the fact that you need to pay out-of-pocket for everything and the cocktail becomes that much more heady. When there are better options available in the world today, we are still expected to make do with something that is hardly optimal.And yet, we are called non-compliant!I am not finding fault with nephrologists. The problem is the system. Healthcare in India is a different beast. The humungous population, the lack of resources, non-protocolised delivery and the very low patient to nephrologist ratio all contribute in some measure to the problem.All I am saying is that healthcare providers need to be a little more sympathetic to these problems. Treat us with a little more dignity, a little more compassion. That should be doable, right?

Hello, I'm Kamal from Hyderabad, India. I have been on dialysis for the last 13 years, six of them on PD, the rest on hemo. I have been on daily nocturnal home hemodialysis for the last four and half years. I can do pretty much everything myself.
I love to travel and do short weekend trips or longer trips to places which have dialysis centers. Goa in India is a personal favorite. It is a great holiday destination and has two very good dialysis centers.

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